Burned
by nlizzette7
Summary: "The boy bites down on the inside of his cheek like he doesn't want to admit it. Like he once thought that nobody could break his heart. And Effy nods, sipping her drink. Perhaps he does know what broken is." / Chuck x Effy, one-shot [repost]


_Part One: Write me a secret letter hidden in a rose. I will be here on soiled knees - a prisoner of the world I sewed._

The year is 2010.

Chuck sits in yet another musty pub, another English town. He smells like a pot of whiskey, a brothel. Outside the rain pours onto dirty sidewalks, and he's unused to towns that promise nothing. He cocks the collar of his button-down and glances to one side as he watches a swell group of burly English people chug down shots at an ungodly hour.

It's all so merry and jolly and drunken - bullshit. He raises his finger, raises his tab for another shot. Soon the walls will be blurry and the floor will be moving and Blair will be nothing. Just a _once was_ and a _never will be again_. He made sure of that, once upon a time.

"Two shots of tequila. Cheers," calls a girl's voice from two seats over.

It's got a pretty lilt, that voice, but it's heavy with burdens he knows nothing about. Maybe stolen innocence - hard nights that leave you with the memories of liquor burning and buildings burning too. Chuck looks her over, catches a mess of brown wavy hair, a clutter of chunky jewelry, and grungy black clothes. She leans against the bar on her elbows, scanning the room until her eyes meet his.

Cold blue. Like the ocean drowning under a storm.

The girl holds his gaze. Chuck puts his drink down, adjusts his collar. She quirks her eyebrows at him, the ghost of a smile on her lips. _Talk to me. I dare you._ And Chuck Bass is always up for a game.

"Can I help you?"

"I don't know, can you?" He notices the hickey on her neck, the scrape on her knee, a diamond stud in one ear, but it's missing from the other.

"Clever."

"Let me buy you a drink." It's a promise, but she seems to be done with those.

"I've got these things called pounds. I can buy my own."

/

He is the type of guy Effy probably hates. The kind who thinks he's got her all figured out, thinks he sees a broken girl, but he doesn't know what broken is. _Or maybe he does. _He's got the shadows she has under her eyes – the smile that falters like happiness is some sort of crime_. _And that makes her want to stay awhile.

They tiptoe around false politeness, throw back vodka like it's a competition. And soon they are drunk and hazy and laughing and –

"I hate my fucking parents."

"You should've met my father."

Effy wonders if he found _his _father half-dressed, shagging his own boss in a raggedy bra and borrowed knickers. She wonders if he saw things trickle apart slowly and then split right in half. She wonders, and then she stops. Girls like her don't really care about these things. Effy Stonem doesn't care at all.

"Your accent is weird," Effy says. "You sound like one of those posh kids."

He smirks. "And you sound like you drink tea and eat crumpets."

"Why are you here, anyway?"

He doesn't miss a beat when he answers, "A girl."

_"_She break your heart?"

He nods, staring straight forward, gripping the glass in his hands tighter until she can see the distorted lines of his fingers through amber whiskey. The boy bites down on the inside of his cheek like he doesn't want to admit it. Like he once thought that nobody could break his heart. And Effy nods, sipping her drink.

Perhaps he does know what broken is.

/

This sobers them up.

An awkward silence, empty glasses, the pub's last call. Chuck is stiff again, heartless and cold in his navy blue suit. Effy is stoic and brooding as she picks at already-broken tights. He watches her and starts to think that she's a lot like Blair, but unhinged.

_Remembering ruins everything._

When they stumble out of Fishpond's, she pulls out a spliff and lights it up, blows a ring of smoke out in between them. Chuck reaches up to touch his own bow-tie and suddenly feels awfully aware of himself. _Posh_, is what she called it. Posh.

"What are you doing now?" Chuck asks, his throat drier than its ever been. A voice tells him that it's not good to fall once, that no one should ever fall another time.

"Nothing." She glances up at him. "Anything."

And then he follows her, or maybe she follows him. Or maybe they walk side by side down an alleyway dripping with rain and rust. It's the start of something that could really be anything. Or nothing at all.

/

"I'm Effy," she says once they've turned a corner to nowhere.

"Bass," he says. "Chuck Bass."

* * *

_Part Two: Because inside, you're ugly like me. I can see through you. See to the real you._

Summer is waning, and they don't notice. Or they pretend not to. But the dog days are always just that. The prettiest things last the shortest, and there's a ticking time bomb on them both. But instead of talking about it, they hide away. They memorize each other under blankets and discover what it's like to love with the whisper of whiskey on their breaths.

She dances for him, to music that doesn't play.

He drinks and she smokes, and then they switch.

The days end with strings of words that never make any sense. A fool's song: _My brother Tony, my uncle Jack, my friends are, my friends were -_

Perhaps they were both born backwards, when you got down to the beginning of it.

/

_At night, Chuck calls her Elizabeth because it drives her mad, and then they whisper Shakespeare in the dark. _

_They both like it when the lovers die at the end._

/

"Your phone's been off a while. Checking it any time soon?" Effy whispers the words to him as they lay in a bath. Her voice is raspy, and he likes it, likes the way her eyes are tired, but he's never met someone so alive. Chuck rests between her legs, his head heavy against her chest. She presses a cigarette to his lips.

"You going to check yours?"

Effy blinks at the ceiling and doesn't flinch when an ash singes her hand. "No. But my mum will probably off herself if I don't go back. And the first day of college was...today, I think."

Chuck nods, closes his eyes. He tries to make sense of this _thing _they have, whether it be an infatuation, an obsession. He slides his hand up her leg to hold her there and answers, "I think I might stay here."

Effy turns her head and pretends not to hear him. "What are you going on about?"

"I graduated. I didn't apply to college because I thought…" He doesn't speak until the bathwater grows cold. "And now I might have something to stay for."

Effy presses her fingers to her temples, frowning. "I thought you weren't like this, Chuck."

"Like what?"

"A romantic." Effy says it like a foul word.

"I'm not like anything."

"Piss off, Bass."

"No, _fuck_ off Stonem. I hear Bristol's nice this time of year. That's it. Good hash, too."

She doesn't believe him for a second.

/

It turns out that her mother's still not home from her Italian escapades. And Effy doesn't plan it, she doesn't have to say it, but Chuck won't be staying in his father's hotel anymore. And now he's looking around at her metal posters and hipster t-shirts, and she feels like a child now. Chuck Bass and his suit and his drawling posh American accent – what the fuck is all of it doing here?

He sets his bags down, looks at her.

"What?"

"Take off your dress," he says.

She doesn't feel so young anymore.

/

It turns out that the second year of college is still shit. A summer with Chuck was a summer elsewhere.

And she loves Panda half to death, but there's got to be more than stupid conversations and popping pills under tables in the pub afterschool. She pictures Chuck and Panda meeting and wants to kill herself. _Bonkers, Eff. He's a ripe one, isn't he?_

There has to be more than this.

She stares at her reflection in the girl's loo, stares at the way she did her hair this morning, the way her eyes are bright and her shorts sparkle. And she knows instantly that it's because of him.

She whispers the words out loud, tries them on her tongue. _Chuck's Effy, Chuck's Effy, Effy's Chuck._

/

At lunch, there's Freddie and Cook, and she expected as much. They're all in the same fucking form, aren't they? She can't run forever, but she doesn't tell them a thing.

These worlds can't collide.

/

"How was your bath?" Freddie asks, teasing her.

"What bath?"

"The one you popped down to take about three months ago."

Effy nods and imagines Chuck's body pressed against hers under the running water.

"Right. I went on a holiday."

"Nice, I guess."

"Yeah, nice."

"I thought about you all summer, Eff."

She glances up at him, unflinching. His eyes are like stars, and Effy thinks that she sort of loves him, in the way you love the t-shirt that's always there but never quite fits. In the way you try to love something when you're too in love with something else.

/

Cook follows after because he's better at stealing than starting. He pretends he just wants to shag her, but his voice cracks like it's something more. She shakes her head because it's her game, but she only really wants to play with one person.

"So, Eff, don't tell me you've been shagging some wanker," Cook says. "Tell me there's some left for Cookie."

She laughs it off, thinks of something to say.

_But no, Cook. There's really nothing left._

/

There's a limo waiting for her afterschool, parked right in front of Roundview. And everyone's fucking staring. _Jesus._

"Who's that, Eff?" Panda asks, nudging Katie and Emily. They're more transfixed by the boy who's just rolled down the window. He keeps his eyes on her, and she frowns back at him.

"Nobody," she says, walking over to the car. Over her shoulder, she sees Cook and Freddie staring and can't tell which of them looks more pissed off.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?"

"Get in."

Effy won't win this, and she can see it in his easy persistence, that look on his face like he's already seen how this is going to end. Chuck does that a lot, and it just might be the worst thing about him. It just might be her favorite thing about him. Effy gets in the car and slams it shut, crosses her arms over her chest.

"What the _fuck _are you doing?"

"Picking you up from school."

"We talked about this."

"I can show you the world, Effy."

"I've already seen it," Effy claims, as if going to Hell and back counts. "I think it's pretty shit."

There's silence until she loosens her arms, and he trails his fingers up her legs. As her dress rides up, and his jacket comes off, she breaks away.

"You're not my boyfriend."

They're halfway between Bristol and something less than love when he whispers against her lips.

"Liar."


End file.
